Welcome to Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners, the place to go for weekend best bets and spot plays from veteran handicapper and tournament-play pioneer Noel Michaels. Check back every week for a couple of highlighted selections designed to help you cash a few bets and make some money.

Noel's selections have been featured just about everywhere horse racing picks can be found, including in print in the Daily Racing Form, The HorsePlayer Magazine and American Turf Monthly, online at DRF.com, Twinspires.com and USRacing.com, from the paddock on-track at Arlington International Racecourse, and on the air on HRTV, TVG, NYC OTB Extra, NYRA's Talking Horses, and on broadcast TV on WAVE-3 Louisville, ABC KOLO-8 in Reno, Nevada, and channel 72 Long Island Cablevision.

Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners is brought to you by Horseplayers.com, the official online qualifying site of the Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) and National Horseplayers Championship (NHC). Horseplayers.com offers low-cost feeders every day and BCBC and NHC qualifiers every weekend, and it’s the only site where you can qualify for the $1.25 million BCBC. It’s free to sign up – click here to get information about registering and how to enter contests.

Six Beginner Betting Tools

1. Start simple with an easy guide for how to bet on horse racing.
2. Not sure what that word means? Horse racing terminology is a language of its own. Allow us translate for you.
3. What the heck is a speed figure? This beginner’s guide to speed figures has everything you need to know.
4. Betting on horse racing can be intimidating. Team ABR put together some Dos and Don’ts for the new fan getting started betting on racing.
5. We all make mistakes when it comes to betting on horse racing, here are eight lessons learned from experience.
6. Figure out how much each bet will cost in advance with our Gambling Calculator, presented by NYRA Bets.

Saturday, Oct. 28

Young fans enjoy the hgorses at Keeneland. (Eclipse Sportswire)

There’s one week to go until we get down to business in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup World Championships, but first things first – Saturday is closing day at Keeneland and the track has one last excellent weekend card to offer horseplayers and handicappers. The back-end of the 10-race, Saturday Keeneland card is jam-packed with playable races, including two graded stakes races, the Grade 3 Bryan Station Stakes and the Grade 2 Hagyard Fayette Stakes, plus a high-priced, stakes-caliber allowance-optional claiming race that goes as Race 7. For this weekend’s winners, let’s tackle Race 7 on the card as well as the Fayette Stakes, and hopefully we can close out the Keeneland fall meet with a pair of money makers. Best of luck and enjoy closing day at Keeneland.

Keeneland, Race 7, $140,000 Allowance-optional claiming, 4:12 p.m. ET

Race 7 is an allowance-optional claiming race that had drawn a stakes-caliber 10-horse field set to go seven furlongs on the main track. The morning-line favorite is #2 Traegar, who is coming back from a nine-month layoff and looks highly beatable against this level of competition in the return from the sidelines. There are plenty of good mid-priced options in this field topped by #1 Fortin Hill, who is coming back from a brief freshening and already has proved to be a horse that runs well fresh as recently as this spring when rolled to victory in a similar race with after taking five months between races. Earlier in his career, he ran his career-best speed figure at this seven-furlong distance, and the most recent race in July was a close third behind repeat next-out winner Nobody Listens in a $100,000 stakes race at Horseshoe Indianapolis. Hall of Famer John Velazquez picks up the mount, his best speed figures are good enough, and he’s a bargain price at 6-1 odds on the morning line. Another interesting contender at good odds on the morning line is #9 O Besos, who was good enough to finish fifth in last fall’s Qatar Racing Breeders’ Cup Sprint where he closed at six furlongs. Last time, he lost to toughies in the Grade 3 Ack Ack Stakes, and now he drops in vs. softer competition and cuts back to seven furlongs, making him extremely dangerous at 10-1.

The Play: Bet to win on #1 Fortin Hill (6-1) and play him in an exacta box with #9 O Besos (10-1).

Keeneland, Race 9, $350,000 Hagyard Fayette Stakes, 5:16 p.m. ET

Trademark (Coady Photography)

The Grade 2 Fayette Stakes offers a big purse and has drawn a full field of 12, plus two also-eligible entrants, set to go 1 1/8 miles on the main track. The race appears to be overloaded with speed with perhaps half the field capable of going to the lead if they send. Therefore, a fast pace seems to be assured. The standout in the field appears to be #10 Trademark, who has been in career-best form in the recent races, including a stakes win at Horseshoe Indianapolis and back-to-back runner-up finishes in the Grade 3 Philip Iselin Stakes at Monmouth Park and particularly last time when just a head short in the Grade 2 Lukas Classic Stakes at Churchill Downs when nipped by Clapton at this distance. Anything close to a repeat of that last effort should be good enough to run away from this bunch. After Trademark, it seems advisable to seek-out live late runners in the field to fill-out the other spots in the exacta and trifecta, especially because those horses figure to go off at appealing odds on the tote board. #2 Happy American is a stone closer who will get his kind of pace set-up today. He got up for third earlier this year in races such as the Grade 3 Blame Stakes and the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Stakes. #3 King Fury needs pace to set him up from far back in the pack. He owns a past win at Keeneland and was third in this race in 2021. #9 O’Connor needs to turn the tables on a couple of these who beat him last time in the Grade 2 Woodward Stakes, but he could be in a better position to excel here and his high speed figures seem to indicate he’s capable on his best day.

The Play:  Bet #10 Trademark (9-2) to win and key him on top of three horses in exacta and trifectas. Horses to play underneath are #2 Happy American (15-1), #3 King Fury (20-1), and #9 O’Connor (5-1).